Pain to Rebirth
by sleeplessnightz
Summary: AU Nalu Rated M for rape (currently) I have to start from the beginning so you can know my pain, to know my salvation, and to know my love. Every path is different, none is correct, but find the one for you and stick to it other wise you have no direction.
1. Chapter 1

High school was interesting. Not hard but not easy either. Band was enjoyable, I loved playing the Oboe; being first chair; hanging out with my best friends; going to competitions and getting all 1's. I made it all the way to Jr. year and it has been great. The only bad part was my best friend, and the person I was in love with is with someone else. For 3 years I have been in love with him, and he and I were going to get together, but in the end he chose someone else.

I tried to not let it bother me. I tried staying best friends with him no matter how difficult, but seeing her with him was painful. I tried employing distance, but small words like "I need you in my life," would make me go back to him. I always ran back to him, no matter what. His smile, his snarky laugh, it would make me melt. In the end, it didn't matter, I was a bad person and he was with someone else. He was Vice-Captain of the Fairy Tail High Soccer Team guaranteed to be Captain the next year, and his girlfriend went to almost all his games and I went to none.

Natsu and Lisanna, Lisanna and Natsu. They were going to get married after high school. He even came up to me and asked me about the promise ring he bought for her, I approved as his best friend. I was there when he gave it to her, I was there with she accepted, I was there when he cheated on her, and I was there when she found out because I was the one who got slapped in the face.

I was called many names, all that you can imagine. I was told to kill myself. I was turned against by people who didn't even know the people who were associated in the situation. Sherry, my long time childhood friend left me in the dust. I was completely at fault for being stupid and naive. Naive for thinking we could be together. Naive for being tricked because all he wanted was sex. I felt used.

I was left. Alone. Abandoned. All my good friends now hated me. Natsu stopped coming to school. Lisanna kept threatening to kill me, but after two weeks she quit school. I tried to put a smile on my face and continue school, but that only made it worse. That made people even more mad, made the bullying worse as well as the isolation. Stress and anxiety boiled over. I developed anger management issues. I tried to kill myself many times. But I didn't. In the end, it was me and my endless torment from my mind.

Two months of pure isolation, hatred, and depression I finally found a new friend, Levy. She was my salvation. My hope. My angel. She was shy and had slight social anxiety but she and I hit it off almost instantly. She handled my over active intent to want to kill people and I helped her open up to people. At the same time, Natsu started coming back to school. Him and I avoided each other but essentially, he had a normal time at school. He still had his best friends Gray, Loke, and Elfman. I felt mad and envious. How could he leave and come back with no repercussions? How come I caught all the heat? How come for anything?

I hated him. I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to feel the things I felt when he was gone. Levy calmed me down mostly, but the boiling anger was still there for months. He tried talking to me again several times, each time I ignored his texts. His smile now annoyed me and his laugh was no longer attractive. And even though we still had classes together I just tried to pretend he didn't exist. But still in the end, my heart longed for what the mind did not. I felt a connection with him that I didn't feel with anyone else.

Senior year, I finally become friends with Natsu again on Levy's and Gajeel's insistence. Gajeel transferred in from Phantom Lord High, a gang school, but he is a good boyfriend to Levy. Gajeel became good friends with Natsu pretty quickly because he joined the soccer team. We started out slow, I still didn't trust him completely because if he was willing to cheat with me he would be willing to cheat on me. And I couldn't deal with that. But after a few months none of that mattered. Him and I were back to being best friends. Two peas in a pod, though we still had disagreements, everything was great. Until he confessed to me, I instantly turned him down and two hearts broke that day.

I became a shadow, an empty shell. I didn't get close to people and I didn't let people get close to me. I shut out my parents and my friends. My depression came back ten-fold. Any positive emotions I felt, I smothered. My self-torture came back, cutting, branding, drugs. I stopped eating, sleeping, feeling. My parents eventually gave up because threatening to put me in a hospital didn't do anything. And all I saw was darkness closing in.

Levy and Gajeel stopped trying with me and slowly stopped having contact after we graduated high school. Eventually I started looking for a job and got hired at a retail store that sold gently used clothes. The distraction was nice. I made a new friend Erza. She was head strong and something I was not used to. Her boyfriend was a little mysterious but really nice nonetheless. I found out later he was a counselor for an AA group. They liked calling themselves Crime Sorciere, especially when they played online games. I thought it was really cool and cute at the same time.

Jellal, Erza's boyfriend, one time lost a bet with one of the CS members and had to get a tattoo over his right eye. He absolutely wouldn't tell me what happened, and every time I asked Erza she would bust out laughing so I eventually stopped. I will forever be cursed to be curious. After a while I branched out and met another person in Erza's life, her best friend Mira. Whom I found out to be the older sister of Lisanna. Small world is what I thought. When Mira heard my name, she asked if I was the same person that her little sister hated for some time, I replied with "Yes." Funnily enough, she didn't hate me. She wanted to be friends with me. She said, "The past is the past, it wasn't my business and you seem to be still dealing with it even after a year. If anything I want to help you. I want to see Natsu again and see if you two could work it out because that is what is needed but I absolutely will not force you to do something you don't want."

I smiled at her concern. She was a super sweet person, though she really loved messing with Erza and embarrassing her, I loved her lots. With her pushing me, I got back into contact with Levy and Gajeel. Levy was thrilled to talk to me again and she was sorry that she didn't try harder with me. I apologized to her as well for not opening up. Her and I reconnecting felt like the world shifted and everything starting to align in place. It felt perfect. I could learn to start my climb into my life again. I could love myself again. Nothing could go wrong.

Something went wrong… not at first though. I decided to meet up with an old high school friend, Bora. He was a jock but he was always nice to me. He knew I liked video games, so he invited me to his place so a group of people would have fun. That group was just four people, myself included. Not a big deal. The guys smoked a little weed and the girls, me and the other girl, drank a little. We were all having a good time, talking and laughing. Playing some video games. I started to drink, and after three shots of vodka I blacked out. I just remember my clothes being taken off, me throwing up, and waking up the next morning not feeling well at all. Don't get me wrong, I used to drink so three shots is nothing so most people can assume. He drove me home and I walked in my house sore, used, and worthless.

When I walked into my house, the first thing I saw was my mom and I lied to her. All I told her was we all played video games and I slept on the couch. Then I walked upstairs to my room and fell asleep. I told Erza what happened the next day when I got to work, to say the least she exploded. She told me to report it, I didn't. I couldn't remember any of it. But a lot of weight was off my shoulders' when I told her and that helped. I, in turn, stopped talking to men. Most at least. Jellal, Gajeel, and my dad excluded.

Levy cried when I told her and Gajeel what happened, and Gajeel… Gajeel looked ready to murder someone. I smiled at the fact I have friends who truly care about me. Even after so long of me being distant and aloof; I started to cry for the first time in a very long time. Everything I bottled up came crashing out, every little thing. And Levy let me, she hugged me and patted my back. She didn't say a word, she just held me, and it turned out that was what I desperately needed for so long but denied myself of such comfort.

I fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys! I am very sorry about the late update. I was trying to do every other week, but that didn't happen! I currently have two jobs, so that is going to be a lot of hours in the day and I'm going to be exhausted. But I'm going to try to be better and more on point. So fyi, how I am going to write my story is the first chapter was an overview. This one is a flashback, and any other chapters that are in italics are also flashbacks. I'm going to try a past, present, future thing. That is my intent, it may not happen that way. A little backstory on this story**. **I am loosely basing it on my past experiences. Loosely. (Please don't ask what is true and what is not!) And I was trying to finish this while I was sick. But enough about me, I present to you the second chapter.**

 _ **(disclaimers: I do not own Fairy Tail or the characters. All rights belong to Hiro Mashima.)**_

 _It was the weekend so no one was at school and most teens were at home relaxing, Lucy excluded. Recently her and her parents moved into a new house so she had to reorganize her belongings into her room. Fortunately, all of her furniture was moved by the movers into the house, so she didn't have to do it herself. She also had the fun experience of choosing what color her room was going to be painted and it was none other than a pale rose pink. It was her and her mother's favorite color, and what is a girl's room if not her favorite color?_

 _Sherry, Lucy's childhood best friend, helped a lot with moving some of her stuff from the moving trucks without too much complaining. Though, unfortunately, she had work to go to soon after. Lucy had to do the rest by herself because her parents were at their business working on a project. Besides putting things away, she had her dog to take care of, Plue. He was a white Husky puppy with an orange snout. Usually she would call him Carrot because Plue was a rather weird name her mom gave him._

 _Lucy was doing the temporary finishing touches when she received a text. She picked up her phone and it read from Natsu. Smiling to herself she opened the message._

"Yo, Luigi. How's the move goin'?"

 _She gritted her teeth at the nickname. He never fails to poke at her nerves. When they first met she just transferred to Fairy Tail High in the middle of freshman year. She was introducing herself to the class and instead of asking what her name was again because he didn't hear correctly he automatically assumed her name was 'Luigi' instead of 'Lucy' and asked very loudly in the middle of her introduction if that was really her name. To say the least, she was annoyed. She replied to the text:_

"When are you going to stop calling me that name, it's been 3 years already. And it's going well. About to start relaxing for a bit. Why? What's up?"

 _While she waited for Natsu's reply, she finished hanging up her clothes into her closet so they are not in baskets or on the floor. Before the move she got rid of the stuff she no longer wore anymore or the stuff that didn't fit and donated them. So now she has significantly less clothes but more room to buy new things and add to her collection. Now with all her clothes on hangers and her shoes on her shoe rack, she steps back and looks at her handy work and is thoroughly pleased with herself. At the same time her phone notified her that she has a new text._

"What? It's kinda funny. You can call me Mario and it would be Mario and Luigi. But anyway. Me and Lis are wanting to visit you, would that be cool? And I would get to play with Carrot. Don't tell Lis, but I really want to see your dog again. I love Happy but Carrot is also very important to me. One true dog love! Lol."

 _Laughing, Lucy replies almost immediately._

"Yeah, you guys can come over. And my lips are sealed. Here's my address: 445 Strawberry Street. And Happy is my true cat love. And I'm not calling you Mario unless you beat me in Mario Carts©. Text me when you get here."

 _After she sent send, she got up from her bed and got changed out of her sweaty clothes and washed her face in her bathroom. She didn't put on anything special, just a pair of shorts and one of her marching band t-shirts. When she looked in the mirror she noticed she had dark circles, nothing a little concealer couldn't hide. She heard Plue start barking and then her phone notifying of her of a text. Looking at it and it said_ _ **Natsu**_ _like she assumed, she walked downstairs to open the front door to let Natsu and Lisanna in._

 _Walking to the front door, Lucy could see Natsu and Lisanna looking through the windows on either side of the door grinning. She laughed as she opened the door. As she did, they walked in like they owned the place. The first thing Natsu did was walk straight to Plue to play with him. Lisanna raised her eyebrow at this but said nothing._ She probably knew this was going to happen _, Lucy thought._

 _Lisanna walked up to Lucy to give her a hug. She stepped back, "hey, sorry for barging in without saying anything. Natsu wanted to see if you were good because you were basically unpacking everything on your own. I agreed," she shrugged, "If we are being annoying, I'm sorry."_

" _No, you are perfectly fine. The only thing that is annoying is A: being called Luigi, or B: being ignored by my best friend because he wanted to play with my dog instead," Natsu perked up at this, "but besides that, you guys are a good distraction."_

 _Natus decided to get up at the obvious instigation. He had his stereotypical grin stuck on his face as he walked up to the girls. "Hey! I told you my true intentions over text. Carrot. And I told you," to put emphasis, he used finger quotations, ""hey" over the phone. And it's not like I can hug you, you usually kick me into the wall when I do." Lucy and Lisanna laughed at this because it was somewhat true._

" _When will you ever indulge me? For like five seconds? I should be allowed to hug my best friend. I have rights, ya know."_

 _Lucy snorted at this. She glanced at Lisanna for a split second and saw that she was shaking her head and smiling. Looking back at Natsu, she exaggerated a sigh and rolled her eyes._

" _All right, you big goof. You have five seconds," she opened her arms wide, ". . . five. . . four. . ." Natsu caught on and ran up to give her a hug. She tensed, kind of not expecting him to hug her, if he noticed, he didn't say anything._

 _To Lucy, the hug seemed to last forever and yet not long enough. His smell permeated her nose; His back muscles under her fingertips; His chest against her's, and then. . . it was gone. Like a wisp, a fleeting moment, a fading memory._

 _When Natsu let go he looked at Lisanna who was tapping on top of her left wrist. Turns out Natsu and Lisanna were only staying for a couple minutes to say hey, to know where Lucy lives, and so Natsu could say hi to her dog. Lisanna had work soon after so they had to leave in a hurry. When they were gone, Lucy let go of a sigh she didn't know she was holding. She was exhausted, yet relieved. Lisanna knows Lucy's feelings for Natsu, but she also knows Lucy wouldn't cross boundaries that would hinder their friendship._

 _But there was one thing that still perplexed Lucy was that her and Natsu were going to start dating, then all of a sudden he has a girlfriend, and she was left to the side lines with no explanation._


End file.
